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Friday, February 11, 2011

Provident Living Spotlight - Homemade Maple Syrup

My favorite food in the world is breakfast food. I would choose a good plate of hash browns and french toast over a rib-eye steak and mashed potatoes any day.

The thing that makes good breakfast food great is all in the syrup.

I know it's weird but I hate store bought syrup. I don't know what it is about it but it just doesn't taste good to me. Luckily, when I was a kid my dad always made homemade maple syrup to go with his homemade waffles so I didn't have to worry about it.

So for me, I always make homemade maple syrup because I like it better. But you may decide to make it because it costs about 1/3 the price of store bought syrup and it is super easy to make. And, not that sugary syrup is good for you, but you might be comforted to know that the main ingredient isn't high fructose corn syrup like store bought syrup is..

Homemade maple syrup only has 3 ingredients.

2 cups sugar (yes, I know this is a lot but what do you think syrup is made out of?)

1 cup boiling water

1/2 tsp maple extract or mapleine (I use closer to 1 tsp)

Directions

Heat water in a saucepan to a boil. Stir/whisk in sugar until it dissolves. Remove from heat and stir in maple extract. Done!

Didn't I tell you it was easy? I can whip up a batch of this while my french toast is cooking and everything is done at the same time.

My favorite way to eat it is over homemade wheat waffles covered in peanut butter. The heat from the syrup melts the peanut butter and makes it perfectly creamy. Sometimes I like to put banana slices on there too.

Mmm... I know what I'm making tomorrow for breakfast.

Just store the leftovers in a mason jar in the fridge and reheat in microwave or stove when needed. Syrup lasts forever. The great thing about this syrup is that you can use it as a base for other flavors too. Sometimes I'll throw some blackberries or raspberries in for a different flavor and it always turns out delicious.

Homemade syrup is runnier than store bought. It doesn't bug me since I'm used to it. If you want to make it thicker, just substitute 1 cup of the sugar for brown sugar or karo syrup. The brown sugar will even give it a richer flavor.